


Pet Rock

by cognomen



Series: The Endless Adventures of Otter!Poe [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Animal Transformation, Multi, Otter!Poe, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 22:32:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5644246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The third time that Finn finds the rock - </i>the same rock? what the hell?<i> - slipped deep into one of the pockets on his combat pants, he figures it must be deliberate.  It's perfectly smooth on all the edges, flat, nearly round - a river stone, he thinks, turning it over in his hand, faintly pinkish with striations of white running in thin veins over the surface. It fits perfectly in his palm, under his closed fingers. He's seen it before - the first time he had been confused - had the laundry mixed up? Had he picked it up somewhere?</i></p><p>Someone wanted to know if Poe had a favourite rock he carried with him. The answer is yes, but sometimes he lets his favourite people carry it instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pet Rock

**Author's Note:**

> This Fic can be found as a podfic by the amazing Reena_jenkins right over here: [ Pet Rock, Podfic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5774653).

The third time that Finn finds the rock - _the same rock? what the hell?_ \- slipped deep into one of the pockets on his combat pants, he figures it must be deliberate. It's perfectly smooth on all the edges, flat, nearly round - a river stone, he thinks, turning it over in his hand, faintly pinkish with striations of white running in thin veins over the surface. It fits perfectly in his palm, under his closed fingers. He's seen it before - the first time he had been confused - had the laundry mixed up? Had he picked it up somewhere?

Finn remembers setting it down on the console of the transport ship and leaving it, thinking it would distract him in battle. The second time it had turned up in his pocket, he figured someone must have seen him leave it and thought he'd like it back. He'd left it in his quarters on the table.

This time - how was it here? He knows the last time he'd seen it - it was slithering back and forth through Poe's fingers, mesmerizing, a soothing motion of smooth, cool surface over warm, work-rough skin. Now, still warm in Finn's hand, he has a pretty good idea how it got into his pocket.

He tucks it back in without saying anything, and it stays there, a smooth reminder that brushes him when he moves, reminding him that someone's waiting who'd like to have him back.

-

When the mission is a success - the Resistance has their fair share of those, but they're pressing an advantage while they have it, before the First Order can fully re-gather itself, fall back to the secure positions he knows they have - Finn returns home to the new base planet with the stone curled in his hand. 

Poe's quarters - not quite adjacent to, but close enough to Finn's own - are empty. He'd seen the T-790 down in the flight yard, and BB-8 greets him with a cheerful beep when he leans into the empty space.

"Hey, BeeBee-Ate," Finn says, smiling. "Where's Poe at?"

His droid is coming along, but it's still not very good. BB-8 trills an ascending beep that ends with 'water'. Finn's pretty sure it's water - or else it's beer, but he'd bet it's 'water'. Poe's been slipping off now pretty often, and Finn thinks he's figured it out. It all started with that mishap they'd had, that _thing_ coming out of the water.

Finn steels himself. He's gotta face this sometime in good light and good faith. It's just part of who Poe is, and if he'd hidden it for that long, it probably felt good to let loose a little. He was still careful about letting anyone know, and that feels a little special to Finn - that he has a secret he keeps with Rey and Poe and no one else.

He takes the seldom-used trail up to the freezing cold mountain pools in the range that shelters the base. The water's normally too cold to even consider a swim, but Poe, when changed, has dense fur. Brown, shiny fur on top, and cream cheeks and belly. Finn's never seen anything like it, but he's been out into the universe long enough to know that for a day to go by where he doesn't see at least one thing he's never seen he'd have to stay home all day and not pay any attention to the transmissions.

He finds Rey sitting up on a rock that surveys the whole pool - the view is beautiful, but her eyes are closed. She's doing Jedi things. Finn sits down next to her and looks at the water. For a long moment, the surface is completely still.

"Hello, Finn," Rey says, without opening her eyes. She smiles. He smiles back, even if she can't see it. 

"Is he, uh," Finn asks, sneaking his hand out - he can still feel the impression of the flat stone on his fingertips. "Changed?"

She nods. Once. Up-down.

"Do you agree it's pretty scary?" Finn asks.

She opens one eye and squints at him with it. 

"It's just Poe in a different package," she says. "I don't think even if he could transform into a Rancor, he'd be at all capable of being scary, unless he was behind the controls of an X-wing."

Finn looks down at the water again.

"I guess I really just didn't expect it. It's really different."

He's starting to worry - just a little, just faintly, that he can't see Poe at all, starting to check the edges of the shoreline for signs of the big, streamlined shape, when it explodes out of the water into a completely ridiculous squiggling line of muscle and short, flailing limbs that still somehow manages to be graceful and impressive until the bulk of the Poe-Creature hits the bank at a run, utters a massive, self-surprised chirp that resonates through his whole tubular body, and then sneezes a massive cloud of water vapor out.

"Scary," Rey says, in a dry tone, and closes both her eyes again.

Poe looks up the bank to where Rey is sitting, small round ears making a slow gesture, and Finn has to admit, it doesn't look all that scary when he realizes that the preferred method of ambulation when in strange-water creature-form seemed to be a frenzied almost sidelong hopping bounce, that looks completely ridiculous and yet so jubilantly alive that it _has_ to be fun.

-

Later, when Poe is Poe again, and they're stretched out on the couch in Poe's quarters with a towel slung around Poe's shoulders to keep his sopping hair from dripping too profusely on the couch, Finn offers him back the stone.

Poe works it over his deft fingers, explaining. "I guess I carry it everywhere. It's just lucky. I didn't really think about it when I started carrying it around, you know. I just found it at the bottom of a river when I was little - you know, when I changed more often - and I liked to have it. But, I've felt pretty lucky since you busted me off of that Star Destroyer, anyway. I thought I'd share the luck."

Finn leans down and presses a kiss to Poe's forehead, grateful. 

"So I guess you started to get more practice at it?" Finn asks, carefully.

"Yeah," Poe says. "Feels good to swim. I forgot all about that."

He rubs the towel absently against his ear, half sprawled as he is over Finn's lap. Poe's dark eyes are seas, for a moment, vast and depthless. Then he seems to realize himself, and pulls his hand away from the space just behind his ear. "That okay?"

"Yeah," Finn says. Then, cautiously. "I don't suppose you'd let me join you sometime?"

Poe's eyes are very bright and very present when he nods enthusiastic agreement,and Finn supposes he's lucky Poe doesn't drag him down to the pool _right now_.


End file.
